Reliability and validity of the supine-to-stand test in people with stroke

Objective: To investigate the psychometric properties of the supine-to-stand test in people with stroke. Design: Cross-sectional design. Subjects: Fifty-two people with stroke (mean (standard deviation) age 63.13 (6.09) years; time post-stroke 93.13 (61.36) months) and 49 healthy older adults (61.90 (7.29) months). Methods: Subjects with stroke were recruited from the community dwelling in Hong Kong and assessed with the supineto- stand test, Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment, ankle muscle strength test, Berg Balance Scale, limit of stability test, Timed Up-and-Go Test, Six-Minute Walk Test, Chinese version of Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale, Community Integration Measure (CIM-C), and 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) in a university-based rehabilitation laboratory. Results: The supine-to-stand test completion time demonstrated excellent intra-rater, inter-rater and test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.946–1.000) for the people with stroke. The completion time was significantly negatively correlated with Berg Balance Scale, Six-Minute Walk Test, limit of stability – maximal excursion, and limit of stability – endpoint excursion results (r = –0.391 to –0.507), whereas it was positively correlated with the Timed Up-and-Go test results (r = 0.461). The optimal cut-off supine-to-stand test completion time of 5.25 s is feasible for a clinical measure to distinguish the performance of people with stroke from healthy older adults (area under the curve = 0.852, sensitivity = 81.1%, specificity = 84.0%). Conclusion: The supine-to-stand test is a reliable, sensitive, specific and easy-to-administer clinical test for assessing the supine-to-stand ability of people with stroke.